


caretaking

by distractionpie



Series: 2018 Rarepair Challenge [3]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Haguenau
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-29 05:10:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13920084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: Nix is no caretaker, but, since Lip is in no state to carry the responsibility the way he usually does, he figures he can do something.





	caretaking

Nix isn’t damn sure that things can be called good, but they’re certainly calmer. Since they got out of Bastogne they’ve finally started getting supply lines flowing, and more nights than not the men are sleeping with roofs over their heads, sometimes even in actual beds, and the fact Easy is back up to having not just one but two competent officers leading them is certainly helpful. 

He never let himself worry, worrying was for the wives and mothers back home and it wouldn’t help him any, but it was one less thing to watch Dick worry about and to keep HQ updated on. 

So he’s feeling relaxed when he rides the jeep into town, knowing that the men will soon be laying claim to their bunks and they’ll all be getting a long awaited showers and-- 

\--jeez. He didn’t think anybody could look as shitty as things have been lately and not already be en route to an aid station, but there Lipton is, slumped on the back of a truck and proving him all kinds of wrong. 

He’s pallid, sweaty even from a distance, and worst of all, he’s just sitting there, not even a hint of his usual distinctive protective hover over the surrounding men. Something is wrong. Beyond the regular cold and stress and fatigue that is affecting all of them. 

But if he’s noticed, Nix doubts that anybody else has missed it. Somebody else is bound to be seeing to it, so he doesn’t even think of doing anything ridiculous like asking the driver to stop so that he can go over and take a closer look at the man himself. The company looks out for each other, Doc Roe and Spina in particular take good care of the men, and there’s nothing he can offer but getting in the way. 

For once they aren’t taking the town themselves, but that does mean that Battalion HQ is already set up and there’s a clerk yipping at his heels almost before his boots hit the slush. The kid looks around sixteen tops, there’s no way anybody could mistake him for a man, but Nix supposes the army justifies turning a blind eye because they’ve only got him running messages and giving directions. Still, HQ will probably have coffee so he lets himself be herded. 

HQ does have coffee, but they also have orders. It’s a farce of a plan if ever he’s heard one. Shuffling all over them across the half-frozen river in inflatable boats in the dead of night sounds like more like the beginning of a bad silent comedy starring an incredibly clumsy stuntman than sound military strategy, but while Nix isn’t demure about asking questions and picking faults he also knows there’s only so much he can get away with and this isn’t a plan he can challenge. At least he has the comfort that across the room Dick looks equally displeased by the idea, though Nix suspects the version in Dick’s imagination is far less comedic. 

He doesn’t need to accompany Dick to the building in which Easy is headquartered, it doesn’t take two men to pass on the order, but he does so anyway both because it keeps him seeming busy enough that he’s less likely to be bothered with people trying to foist some other task on him, and because the mess with Dike has left Dick even more twitchy and overprotective of Easy than ever and while Speirs is doing just fine leading the company Dick hadn’t quite gotten used to the fact that they’re not his men anymore. Thus far, Speirs has borne up surprisingly well under Dick’s lapses into concerned micromanagement but, since Ron has a reputation for being anything but endlessly patient, Nix prefers to be ready to redirect Dick’s attention if things get a little too much. 

As usual, there being nothing pressing going on doesn’t mean that things are still or quiet in the company headquarters.

Lip is on a couch in the centre of the room and  Luz is darting back and forth looking busy, while their green west-point lieutenant and a slightly vacant looking private stand around waiting for directions.

The only real shock is that  Speirs standing over Lip’s couch and fussing, though Nix isn’t sure if this is the revelation of an unexpected softer side or if it’s just Ron’s apparent belief that he can make any situation go his way if he’s stubborn enough about it.

Either way, Lipton is well taken care of. He has a terrifying protector, plus a couch, a blanket and some paperwork propped up on his knees and Nix had seen Luz bustling through with a fresh cup of the swill that the army calls coffee. 

He’ll be okay. 

But then again, paperwork... 

Sure, the work probably needs doing, but it can’t be a healthful action. 

He wonders if it’s the promotion, if Lip thinks that acknowledging his illness with get him booted back down to sergeant before he’s even formally got his Lieutenant’s bar. But no, Nix decides, remembering everything he’s seen from the man over the past two years, no, it wasn’t the promotion that kept Lip from begging off to an aid station, it was just the type of man he was.

Dick and Sparky have the young new Lieutenant well in hand and that leaves Nix’s attention free to linger to Lipton, laid up on the couch. Resting, officially, but Nix does too much paperwork in the line of duty to be convinced that Lip is aiding his recovery by sitting hunched over forms. Whatever is presently wrong with him, he’ll add headache to the list soon enough if he carries on as he is.

It’s no good.

Since joining up Nix has grown more comfortable than ever in the knowledge that there are a great deal of things that he cannot fix, not even change. He’d learned it growing up, helpless in the face of his father’s expectations, his mother’s moods, Blanche’s girlish dilemmas, but it was the army that had show that the burden was universal and there is nothing but to do other than accept it.

So it’s a truly strange feeling for Nix to look at Lipton and feel that he might have some way of helping the man that others cannot provide.  Though he’d mostly set it aside (or at least toned it down) in favour of doing his bit for the war effort, Nix still has all of his youthful shirking abilities and it seemed that right now Lip was greatly in need of some encouragement to idleness. 

Caretaking has never been an area in which he was gifted, nor was it expected of him, but, on this occasion, Nix feels he was certain to excel.  

There are duties he has to attend to first, but those are quickly wrapped up --unlike Dick, he’s quite happy to delegate-- and before long he’s back at HQ where, just as he’d suspected, Lip has rejected the opportunity for some real rest (or as close to it as it was possible for any of them to get when they were still being shelled intermittently) in favour of acquiring more paperwork.

A duo of privates come clattering through the room, leaving the door swinging wide behind then and letting an even stronger draught than there already was whip through the room. It makes Nix shiver, though half of that is from surprise. More seriously, the gust sets Lip off in a coughing fit that forces Nix to grab hold of his papers to keep them from falling to the floor - the perfect opportunity to spirit them away, carrying them with him as he shuts the door, then depositing them on an end table (held in place by a stray mug in case of further draughts) before returning.

“Krauts won’t need to worry about blowing us up at this rate, we’ll all be blown away first,” he jokes.

Lipton blinks up at him and it is only then that it occurs to Nix that perhaps Lip isn’t the type to find that sort of thing as funny as he does. Indeed, to the wrong ears, it might be taken as harmful to morale.

Then Lip’s mouth quirks upwards in one corner, just the tiniest hint of amusement -- but then, has Nix ever seen the man acting anything but the picture of restraint and control?

He thinks about offering Lip a nip of whiskey to warm him up, but he’s pretty sure Lip isn’t a drinker and anyway he’s running short and while he only has snatches of rumours to let him know what command has planned for him next, those whispers suggest that it isn’t a mission that will lend itself to scrounging more supplies.

The fact is, he and Lipton have never been close, and he doesn’t know what sort of amusements would distract the man from his work enough to let him rest. Dick is easy, for him to relax Nix just has to tell him that taking care of himself sets a good example for the men; Buck had hardly needed persuading, just the excuse of raising morale; and while working closely with Speirs is still a new experience it has already become clear that his two greatest amusements were looting and surreptitiously feeding into the rumours which surrounded him so that he could freak out the men. But Lipton? A mystery.

It occurs to Nix then that perhaps the reason he knows so little about how the  man slacks off is because perhaps he never had. Even at Toccoa, when the greatest danger the men faced was being removed from paratrooper training and sent down to an easier program, he’d taken it upon himself to watch over them to a far greater extent than his position called for.

Lipton is looking at him expectantly, like he’s waiting for, what, orders? Nix might have the authority but the man is sick, he should at least look resistant to the possibility.

He sits down on the couch opposite Lipton and purposefully doesn’t acknowledge the slight look of surprise.

Close up Lipton looks exhausted. And Nix has no ideas on how to distract him, no tricks to make him rest, he’s coming up all dead-ends yet he still finds that he wants to do something. Luz is off seeing to some other duty now and Ron has vanished to and somehow it feels wrong for Lipton to be left alone with his sickness like this. So maybe Nix is useless but he’s there.

So he talks, inanely but Lipton doesn’t complain, of the idle speculation he’s heard about how soon things will end and how Germany might be parcelled up afterward; of headquarters gossip and of Speirs latest haul; of the worn down paper-back he’s reading for the sixth time that wasn’t that interesting the first time; rummages through the few papers still by them and offers his own commentary on the reports, rather more colourful than the official version and, when Lip doesn’t laugh, Nix glances over and realises Lip’s head is lolling, eyes shut and breath coming in a steady wheeze.

Nix smiles.

Boring somebody to sleep has never previously been an aspiration of his, but what’s one more surprise in this war?

**Author's Note:**

> The thing about this rare pairs challenge is the main goal is to stretch myself as a writer. While I liked the concept when I began it, this attempt at writing out of my comfort zone mostly resulted in me being unable to find a writable dynamic between the characters that would take them to a romantic place and realising I really struggle to write Nix's character in this sort of context, but I'm posting it anyway because the challenge wasn't about writing well. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
